College Baseball Michigan at U of I

I made the two hour trip down to Champaign from Chicago today to shoot the Michigan at U of I baseball game. Weather was nasty, it was cold and very windy but luckily no rain. The Illini have a field turf field, no dirt except for the pitcher's mound. All were shot with a MKIIN and a 400/2.8, C&C always welcomed and appreciated. EXIF is embedded.


1. This is Zach Putnam, Baseball America has him rated as one of the top college pitching prospects.

Very nice work Chris... Who won?

Shame UofM hockey went down to ND... Boo Hiss...

Thanks Jay. MI won 9-5. I had to look up the score, I left before the game was over. I had enough of the weather and it was getting to dark to shoot.

Great shots! Gotta stay on your feet apparently!

So home plate and the sliding paths around bases are not dirt either, just dirt colored field turf? Pretty cool! Must be a different feel sliding into a base on that stuff relative to dirt.

I guess too that the batters boxes and foul lines are permanent? Nice low maintenance field!

Nice work as always, Chris! Excellent exposures and rich colors especially for a night game. Gotta love those protective fences some ballparks have for togs -- I wish all venues had them. #4's my favorite -- perfect face behind the mask.

I like the photos but have reservation about the turf...not the photos of but playing on it!

These shots look awesome.

you did an outstanding job

Thanks for all of the comments. I'm not sure if I'm sold on the playing surface either, I've shot a lot of football games on it and it's becoming pretty popular for that sport but I'm just not sure about baseball. The Illini media guy told me it would drain 7" of rain per hour and they put it in because it will allow them to play games that would have been canceled due to a wet field. We've had so much rain up here that this game probably would have been canceled if it wasn't for the turf.